This is the first in a series of Eddie Peece stories, tech fiction written and illustrated by Peter Oakley. This story originally appeared in a comic book titled "Ersatz Peach," (Aeon/MU Press, July 1995) edited by Donna Barr.
Only your attorney would be interested in reading this paragraph, but hopefully won't need to. Eddie Peece and other characters and events in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental. Use of names of actual places, businesses, organizations or products is for the purpose of believable storytelling, and should not be construed as having any basis in fact. This story and accompanying art are for your private access and enjoyment. You can save them to your disk, show them to friends, print them out and tape them to your refrigerator. What you do with them in the privacy of your own home is your business. However, as you might expect, this story and art is owned and copyrighted by Peter Oakley, ©1995,1997, who reserves all rights to its use and licensing. No reproduction of these properties, beyond those described above, is permitted in any way, shape or form, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes, in any media, for public or private viewing, sale or exchange. And if you have made it to the end of this paragraph, you are a remarkable person indeed, and would surely find greater enjoyment in reading the story itself.
By day I edit manuscript, and at night I do net jams with my music buddies, working off a stolen sector of the Mbone. We're pretty good.
A few nights ago, this stranger taps in. On my screen, his image is of a 30's detective, all flat black silhouette, backlit. I took the stupid vis for a small-change nobody with an inflated ego, but I was wrong. Anyway, he said his name was Benny, a table mixer, and he was drafting me for a jam starting right away in the Hollywood sector. He gave me the coordinates and told me to be there in a few minutes. That was unusual; I'd never played in the Hollywood sector, and I thought it was all big bands...
A silhouetted 30's
detective vis.So we gathered; a drummer, a lead guitar, keys, a synth orchestra guy, and various other assorted singers and musicians. With me on the sax and doing backup vocals.
The three-space was pretty fuzzy, all dark and jagged, like somebody was jamming the link. But I could see well enough to find a place to park my image, and sync up the sax. Benny was in a lit box above us, still a shadow, with his mixing table synced in and ready to roll. The studio address spooled in red dots across an old banner box sitting on the edge of the console: "screaming_horse@tdp.com," a commercial studio. I'd never heard of it.
Syncing up the sax.
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